The Off-Screen Times

Last weekend saw the broadsheet general news sections of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, which currently wrap existing compact sections within the newspapers, transform into a compact size.
While the shape of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age weekend editions changed to a more convenient format, the level of independent journalism and depth of content did not change. In The Age, Saturday’s Life&Style section was relaunched as Spectrum, Fairfax’s national entertainment and lifestyle brand.

Don’t forget to enter the ‘Ultimate Compact Weekend’ competition for your chance to win one of four amazing weekend breaks. Just go to http://www.weekendcompact.com.au/ to enter.

Magazine Circulation Audit Results December 13

Although some encouraging results could be taken from the magazine market place across several categories, total magazine sales were down 13% YOY. The celebrity weekly category took a concerning hit again down overall over 14% YOY. OK! and Famous posted the largest decline of -18% with NW at -14%. Unfortunately it’s a similar story in the women’s lifestyle category with most titles within the set recording decreases YOY. Cleo and Cosmo fell by -17% and 14% respectively, however there is still hope for print amongst young women readers with RUSSH and Frankie again the standout performers up 5.6% and 4.6% respectively. The youth category took a huge hit with both Dolly -22.3% & Girlfriend -23.3%. The Men’s Lifestyle category fell -17.2% driven by Zoo Weekly continuing its massive decline by losing -34.9% copy sales. Sale of titles within the fashion set and House & Garden category remained stable YOY. Bauer’s Women’s Fitness was a star performer up 21% YOY.

RADIO NEWS

Apple releases ITunes Radio

February 11th saw the launch of ITunes Radio, Apple’s free music streaming service competing against the likes of Pandora, Rdio and Spotify. One of the key benefits for advertisers, is the access to the large volume of data that Apple holds on its customers, and the precision ad targeting they offer to pinpoint audience segments. Go to http://advertising.apple.com/experience/itunes-radio/ for more information.

DMG rebrands as Nova Entertainment

Lachlan Murdoch’s DMG Radio Australia has rebranded as Nova Entertainment as part of a corporate makeover designed to reflect their move into the communications and retail sectors. These include partnerships with non-radio assets, including music streaming service Rdio, supermarket Coles, live entertainment with Nova Red Room events, Pay-TV platform Foxtel, and the e-commerce space with their ShopperNova app.

The rebrand comes 17 months after Murdoch acquired the remaining 50% share of the company he didn’t already own from British media conglomerate Daily Mail and General Trust. There has predictably been some speculation around the timing of the rebrand coinciding with the Australian arrival of Daily Mail Online, though according to CEO Cathy O’Connor “Lachlan purchased the remaining stake in 2012 so DMGT has not been involved since 2012, so it was natural that at some point we would change the name.”

Nova Entertainment (formerly known as DMG) partner up with Coles radio

DMG Radio and Coles Supermarket group have teamed up to digitally stream Coles radio to over 750 stores nationally, and is set to reach 14 million customers a week. Advertising will be sold by both Coles and DMG, and advertisers will be able to deliver content through 7 different streams for each state and territory, so Coles Radio will be able to tailor different messages to appeal to specific needs of each market. So for any briefs targeting mums with kids, this channel should definitely be on the consideration list. Launch advertiser brands include Berocca, Mintos, Nestle, Arnott’s and Mortein.

OOH NEWS

Ooh! launch new online platform for students

In Outdoor news this month, Ooh! media have launched a new platform called “Hijacked”; a new online portal for university students which complements their pre-existing study panel offering. A content section will be added to the loop on the panels which will be pulled directly from the Hijacked website. The website itself has a unique offering of relevant content written specifically for students.

The rise of Digital OOH continues…

The rise of digital OOH continues this month with oOh! adding 24 new digital screens to their existing Sydney Domestic Airport offering. For a list of the full airport offering please contact your off screen trader.

APN also expand their Large Format digital offering this year, with 7% of all Large Format inventory now digital and plans to add more digital sites across 2014. In June/July they will also introduce digital cross tracks for the first time ever, with sound and video available. NFC on their transit interiors will also be available. First tests on this have shown predictably high interaction rates due to the long dwell times, but more to come on this once the results are in.

Campaign Highlights

This month Clinique have executed a special Outdoor campaign with JCDecaux, where pedestrians can press a special 3D bubble filled with liquid on the panel and receive a pull out voucher to redeem the product in Myer and David Jones.

Avails

Large Format: Ooh! is filling up for L4 and for APN it is almost full. L5 is starting to sell out of top iconic sites and landmark sites.

Street Furniture: Adshel are filling up for the 24th March. April 7th has open avails but April 21st has limited avails. For JCDecaux, avails are fine- nothing is sold out across March and April however the Banking and FMCG categories are filling up across March.

Retail: Ooh have reported very limited avails for the 10th March but the following fortnight has some good avails still. Val Morgan avails are fine across March and April.

Study: Study is extremely full with Ooh! media for 10th March and the 24th March is filling up fast also.

Transit: With APN, for L4 all impact formats are sold out. L5 is limited but there are still good avails.

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